“No, no! It cannot be, it cannot! … Let me go!” Svetlogoúb’s mother shouted piercingly, struggling to free herself from the grasp of the schoolmaster—her son’s friend—and of the doctor, who were trying to keep her back.
Svetlogoúb’s mother was a nice-looking middle-aged woman, with grey curls and a star of wrinkles near each eye.
The schoolmaster, when he heard that the death-warrant was signed, wanted to prepare her gently for the terrible news; but he had hardly begun to speak about her son when, by the tone of his voice and his timid look, she guessed that what she dreaded had really happened. This took place in a small room in the best hotel in the town.
“Oh dear! Why do you hold me? Let go!” she shouted, freeing herself from the doctor—an old friend of the family, who with one hand held her by her thin elbow, and with the other put a bottle of medicine on the table which stood before the sofa. She was glad they held her, because she felt that she ought to do something, but did not know what to do, and was afraid of herself.
“Don’t be so agitated. … Here, take these valerian drops,” said the doctor, handing her a glass of turbid liquid.
She suddenly grew quiet, and, bent almost double, her head drooping on to her hollow chest, she closed her eyes and sank on to the sofa.
She remembered how, three months ago, her son had taken leave of her with a look of mystery and sorrow on his face. Then she recalled him as an eight-year-old boy, dressed in a velvet jacket, with bare legs and long fair ringlets.